


Ghost Hunters Unsolved

by Chrystie, kate882



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe- No Capes, M/M, but i had thirty minutes left of spooky day, ghost hunter au for halloween, i just made a quick edit rip, this says november first post date
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:21:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27319918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrystie/pseuds/Chrystie, https://archiveofourown.org/users/kate882/pseuds/kate882
Summary: To be clear: Jason did not believe in ghosts.But the flyer on campus saying someone named Dick Grayson needed a camera-man for his new ghost hunting YouTube channel sounded weird enough to intrigue him.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd
Comments: 10
Kudos: 208





	Ghost Hunters Unsolved

**Author's Note:**

> neither me nor crysty have actually watched buzzfeed unsolved, but we are aware of the premise  
> also yes this is also from the WIP folder, but it wasn't one of the finished ones i've been cleaning out we just stayed up really late last night so that it could be ready for spooky day

To be clear: Jason did not believe in ghosts. 

But the flyer on campus saying someone named Dick Grayson needed a camera-man for his new ghost hunting YouTube channel sounded weird enough to intrigue him. So he went for it because why not honestly. And it helped that Dick was stupidly hot. 

So now it was midnight and he was cold and in an abandoned building. They’d just finished filming outside where Dick explained the history of the building and the odd sounds people heard around it, so now it was time to go in. 

“Is this place even safe to walk around in? It looks one storm away from falling apart,” Jason commented as he followed Dick.

“Who knows, it makes it a little more exciting,” Dick shrugged as he continued to stroll in.

“I’m going to haunt the fuck out of you if this place collapses on us,” Jason informed him flatly, zooming in on some of the graffiti on the walls.

“I’m flattered by how much time you’d like to spend together.”

“It would be revenge haunting, don’t make it weird.”

“Who’s making things weird? Not me.” Dick stopped by the stairwell where there were still remnants of a stain left. “This is supposedly where our victim died. You can feel the temperature drop just from being near it.” 

“It’s below freezing right now. If I step over there and it’s any colder I’m going to have some problems with a ghost,” Jason grumbled. 

“Are you gonna punch a ghost, Jay?”

“If I must,” Jason responded, continuing to follow him, but pausing when he heard noise. “Huh, you hear that?” 

Dick paused. “Kinda. Is that coming from upstairs?”

“Probably just a raccoon or something,” Jason said, but Dick was already heading towards the stairs so he followed along with him. 

“If I die you’re going to have to avenge me.”

“I don’t remember that being in the job description that you gave me.” 

They got to the second floor, which looked pretty trashed, like a wild animal had been tearing the place apart, but there was no animal in sight. There was however **LEAVE** written in dripping red paint on the wall meant to look like blood, though it was long dried. “Guess we aren’t the only ones that heard this place was haunted,” Jason said as he panned the camera around, lingering on the writing on the wall. 

Dick, unafraid, walked up to it and touched it. “Definitely pretty old, but also definitely not blood.”

“I’m begging you to not touch things you think might be blood,” Jason made a disgusted face at him. 

“It’s fine, Jay, you don’t have to worry about me.” Dick continued to explore the area with just as little caution. “Some of the stuff here has been moved recently. The dust isn’t evenly layered everywhere.”

Jason walked over to get a better shot of the dust. “No prints in the dust either, so not sure what moved the stuff.” 

“Maybe we’ll see a ghost tonight after all.” Dick sounded more excited about that than he had any right being.

“I’ve decided I hope ghosts are real just because you definitely deserve to be haunted.”

Dick just continued to float through the area with a look on his face that said he did want something to pop out at him.

They heard noise again, which Jason was convinced was just an animal, but Dick insisted was ghost activity, but ultimately after several hours of searching did not find either ghost or animal and had to call it a night. 

* * *

They’d gained a small following after their first few episodes, but it was when they went to investigate a spot where people were disappearing that they really blew up. “I’m not actually keen to die again, and this seems like it might be more creating ghost activity than actual ghost activity,” Jason informed Dick as he followed him with a camera. 

“What are you talking about, Jay? We’re just following where the investigations lead us.”

“We’re about to end up on the back of some milk cartons.” 

“We’ll be fine,” Dick waved off.

Jason squinted at him. “Ah I see, I’ve followed an idiot. Should have gotten that from the ghost hunting.” 

“Well this idiot is trying to catch a ghost, and I don’t know if your negative attitude is going to attract one or chase one away.” Dick eyed a dark corner that, from most angles, would be disregarded. It was a blind spot most people probably missed when they came around here.

“A ‘ghost’ that’s been abducting people? It’ll almost certainly attract them.” 

And then Jason did something Dick never thought he’d see after how many times his hand was smacked away from Jason’s camera. 

He dropped it. 

“Dick, look out!” Dick was tackled out of the way just as a knife scraped him, the sting nothing compared to what it could have been. 

The man had come from the corner Dick had been eyeing, but Jason was the one with the night vision view on the camera turned on who would have been able to see better. 

“Shit! That’s not a ghost.” Dick slapped Jason’s arm to try and get him off of him, not that he wasn’t grateful, but there were other pressing matters. “Jay, he’s getting away!”

“No he’s not,” Jason picked up a rock from the ground and launched it with aim that made Dick wonder if Jason had played sports at some point when it nailed the guy on the back of the head.

The man crumpled to the ground and Jason whipped out his phone to film with. “... should we call someone?” He asked after a moment without movement from their attacker. 

“I mean, he did try to stab me. I think that means we do need to get police involved.” Maybe he’d need a paramedic to look at his cut too. It didn’t sting too bad, but it didn’t hurt to be safe.

“Yeah, alright. You do that, I’m gonna make sure I didn’t just accidentally kill him.” Jason cautiously approached the attacker and after a moment gave Dick a thumbs up.

Dick quickly called the police and prattled off the details for where they were and what had happened. He probably could’ve been less nonchalant about it over the phone. “Police are coming. I think we just caught a killer.” Dick winced slightly as he got up to stand next to Jason.

“I told you this was sketchy as hell,” Jason reminded him. “You okay? I’ve got some first aid stuff in my bag since you keep taking me to structurally unsound places.” 

“Yeah, just a small cut. Probably just needs to be cleaned.”

Jason nodded, setting down his phone for a moment to dig through his bag before attempting to administer first aid one handed so he could document Dick’s injury. “Hate to break it to you, but this might need a few stitches,” Jason told him with a frown. 

Dick groaned, “Stitches are gonna hurt more than the actual cut.”

“That’s because you’re full of adrenaline from almost getting murdered. It’ll probably hurt more once you crash.” The sound of sirens started to become audible and Jason quickly grabbed his dropped camera. Presumably so it wouldn’t get run over by a cop car. Although it certainly looked to have taken some damage already in the fall. 

The cops came with the paramedics, and once they saw Dick bleeding through his shirt they whisked him away to be treated, leaving Jason to give the statement..

* * *

Jason had been surprised that Dick wanted to still air that episode, but went along with it easily enough. It turned out his dropped camera had still been getting audio after it was dropped, but the lens was shot. Combined with his phone footage though they got most of the night. 

They weren’t really expecting it to blow up, but they probably should have been. News outlets were using their footage, and their subscribers more than doubled overnight. They also had requests for interviews sitting in the inbox for their channel email that barely got messages before.

“I think it’s mostly true crime people,” Jason said as he looked over Dick’s shoulder at the emails. 

“Yeah, think we should take them?”

“You can. I’m just the camera guy,” Jason shrugged. Jason’s lack of camera appearances and social media combined with Dick being Bruce Wayne’s son meant that all the pictures in articles about them were of Dick, and Jason was perfectly happy to keep it that way. “We could also just do our own Q&A.” 

“Yeah. Doesn’t really feel right to take the interviews without you, so I guess making our own it is. Oh!” Bruce had felt that he’d owed Jason for saving Dick’s life, but didn’t feel the need to actually meet him, so he’d bought him a new camera to replace the one that broke. Dick handed it to him in a cute little box he’d wrapped himself.

“What’s this?” Jason took it uncertainly, eyebrows raised. 

“A gift. I hear heroes deserve them.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “I’m not a hero. And you certainly don’t owe me anything.”

“Sure I do, but this is actually from Bruce.”

“Bruce Wayne is buying me things?” It seemed to get him curious enough to actually open it though, carefully peeling away the wrapping paper. “This is a better camera than the one that broke,” Jason informed him, staring at it with wide eyes. 

“All yours. I did kinda feel bad about your camera, Bruce just beat me to the punch on getting you a new one.”

“... I guess I can take a billionaire's money,” Jason said reluctantly. “Tell him thanks or something.” 

“Will do. Don’t think you won’t get something from me too, I’m just waiting for an opportunity.” And an idea, but Jason didn’t need to know that.

“Don’t do that. It wasn’t a big deal. You really don’t owe me anything.” 

“You keep telling yourself that.”

“The camera from your dad is more than enough. Especially since it looks like ghost hunting is about to start making us money now that people know who we are.” 

“Let’s hope we don’t catch anymore serial killers while we’re doing it. The attention’s nice, but I don’t think I want to go through the experience again.”

“Next time I tell you something is sketchy as hell, maybe consider listening to me then,” Jason shrugged, flopping down onto Dick’s couch next to him, his head landing just next to Dick thigh. 

“Your instincts were right,” Dick agreed, “But we can also now say we caught a serial killer. If that was in any bucket list, it can be crossed off. We just won’t do it again.”

“That was not on my bucket list,” Jason said flatly. “We barely avoided being killed by a serial killer.” 

“And now we’ll be going back to normal ghost hunting. Hopefully no more dying.”

“No ghosts if someone doesn’t die,” Jason pointed out. 

“From people who are still currently alive,” Dick amended. 

“Have you seen the theory going around that I’m a ghost?” 

Dick had. It was funny enough that Dick didn’t really want to disprove it. “There’s no proof that you aren’t,” Dick chuckled.

“And there is proof that I am apparently,” Jason grinned at him. “They are concerned by me offhandedly talking about dying before and never showing up on camera.” 

“That was a pretty offhanded thing to mention, care to explain?”

“You gonna do an episode on the ghost of Jason Todd?” 

“Probably not, it’s too funny seeing them speculate, but that doesn’t mean I’m not curious.”

Jason shrugged like it was no big deal as he said, “I ‘died’ in the hospital a few times when I was fifteen, but the doctors kept restarting my heart,” he tapped his chest absently, “so here I stand before you. Or lay before you since I’m on your couch.” 

“So you’re closer to a zombie than a ghost.”

“Hmm, yeah maybe,” Jason mused. 

“I think you’re supposed to run from most zombies, but I guess I like you enough to stay,” Dick poked his cheek.

Jason swatted his hand away. “Don’t worry. I don’t think I want to eat the brains of the guy who took me to a murder site to go ghost hunting.” 

“Har har, too bad we’ll be going to another one soon.”

“We’re going to another murder site?” Jason’s eyebrows shot up. 

“Old houses where murder happened are where ghosts are.”

“Yeah, but not an _active_ murder site, right?” 

“Probably not. We’ll see, I’m thinking very unlikely right now.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Is this going to be before or after your Q&A?” 

“Let’s do the Q&A first.”

“You wanna tweet about it then?” 

Dick had already had it pulled up and was tweeting about it.

Jason cast a pointed look around the messy apartment. “Should we film it at my place?” 

“That sounded like judgement, Jay, but sure, if you’re comfortable with that.”

Jason hadn’t actually invited Dick to his apartment before, but he just waved a hand dismissively. “Sure, why not. It’s just one video.” 

“If you’re sure then I guess your house it is. Maybe it’ll be a point towards you not being a ghost.”

Jason shook his head. “It will not be. They don’t need to know it’s my place.”

“Of course not,” Dick laughed, “how could I assume any different.”

“I’m leaning into the ghost thing. I think it’s hilarious,” Jason grinned at him. 

“Alright there, Dead Boy.” Although Dick did agree in thinking it was pretty hilarious too.

“Just let me know when you have enough questions and we’ll work out a time to do it.”

* * *

Jason’s apartment was decidedly cleaner than Dick’s own, but did still look lived in. He’d told Dick his roommates were out for the day, so they could film in peace. He’d set up a table in front of his couch and some lighting for filming it would seem as well. 

“I guess I can see why you wanted to film here instead.”

Jason shrugged. “It seemed like it would be easier. Are you ready?” 

“Born ready,” Dick plopped himself down on Jason’s couch.

“Right, so I’ll just edit out your bad answers,” Jason agreed easily, shifting the table slightly to center it with Dick better after checking the framing in the camera and then motioning for him to start.

“Full disclaimer, I haven’t read all of the questions yet.”

Jason just stared at him for several seconds before answering with, “Dick, what the fuck?”

“I read most of them,” Dick tried to defend himself, “just not all of them, some of them will be a surprise, that makes things more fun.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “More fun for you. I have to edit this.”

“You’re the best, Jay,” Dick grinned, “some questions are for you too.”

“I’m not coming around to be on camera for them,” Jason said flatly. 

“You don’t need to, just gotta answer them. They obviously can hear you.”

“We’ll see.” Jason motioned for him to start.

Most of the questions Dick went through were about how scared they typically were, if they knew about the murders when they went to the last place, and if Jason was a ghost. What really came as a surprise to Dick was when one question asked if he and Jason were dating.

“Well uh no,” Dick fumbled, “don’t get me wrong, he’s cute and all and, well I guess you guys wouldn’t know that...”

“‘Cute’ is not usually the compliment I get,” Jason intoned from behind the camera, even as his face heated up slightly. 

“Huh, unexpected. I would’ve figured you got it a lot.”

Jason arched an eyebrow. “I’m usually intimidating enough that ‘cute’ isn’t the word.”

“That blush you’re sporting would say otherwise.” It made Dick a little more comfortable knowing he wasn’t the only one feeling flustered.

“I’m cutting this out. Your viewers do not need to think of me as cute.” 

“Why not?” Dick grinned at him.

“That is not the image I’m aiming for. Besides, the way you answered that is only going to encourage them.” 

“It caught me off guard,” even if that was the point of not reading all the questions, it was still a little unexpected.

“You really haven’t been reading our comments then,” Jason rolled his eyes. 

“I’ve read most,” apparently not enough though.

“I’m sure. You wanna try to answer that again or just skip it?”

“I don’t know, I’m partial to still calling you cute now.”

“I’m going to cut it each time you say it,” Jason warned. 

“No fun, Jay.”

“If you answer like that, people are going to think you want to be dating.”

Dick hummed and tapped his chin, “I wouldn’t not want to date.”

Jason stared at him, mouth hanging open for a moment. “... What?”

“What?” Dick blinked innocently.

“Are you asking me out in the middle of our Q&A?” 

“Maybe?”

Jason stared at him for several seconds before stopping the recording. 

“Um, is that a good sign or a bad one?”

“A good one, but this is probably a conversation we should actually have, and I’m not going to waste time editing it out.” 

“Sooo did you want to go on a date? With me? No ghosts involved.”

“Guess I can’t go if it’s no ghosts allowed,” Jason mused, a teasing glint in his eyes. 

Dick huffed a laugh, “I thought we agreed that you’re a zombie.”

“The viewers haven’t,” he pointed out, but still came around the camera to lean against the couch. “I suppose a date without ghosts could be nice. You’re still not telling your viewers we’re dating though. Way too soon for them to know.” 

“It is. I guess we can skip that question and let them call us out for skipping it.”

“Not like we can answer everything,” Jason shrugged. “We can tell them when I actually show up on camera.” 

“So there is a plan for you to show up?”

“No, I just figure I’ll eventually end up in a reflection at a time I can’t cut,” Jason told him. 

“How forward thinking. I guess we’ll finish recording and can decide on a date after.”

* * *

“What the fuck,” Jason muttered, nearly a year later, pointing the camera at the dusty mirror where ‘Get Out’ was being written into the dust by an invisible force. 

“Is… is that happening?” Despite the message, Dick was frozen where he was.

“It’s happening. I just wanna know how,” Jason squinted at the mirror. “Oh shit, I’m in it,” he muttered, frowning at the reflection showing on his camera. “No ghost in frame though.” 

“And yet it wants us to leave.” Dick was inclined to listen.

“Gotta be some kind of trick with the mirror,” Jason muttered, leaning closer to investigate. 

The mirror immediately shattered, and that had Dick ready to run, not that Jason was getting the hint. “You sure? Are you really sure?” 

Jason rolled his eyes. “Aren’t you the ghost hunter here? Isn’t this what you’ve been waiting for? But yes, I’m sure. Because ghosts aren’t real,” he answered dryly. "Here look. Hey ghosts! It's me, ya boy!" Jason shouted towards the mirror. He waited all of two seconds before scoffing. "See?" 

“This coming from the zombie," Dick huffed, "Are you finding any trick to this?”

“If you’re that freaked out, we can leave, but I’m certainly not stressed about a ‘ghost’ that can’t do better than breaking a mirror.” 

“Well,” Dick sucked in a breath, “if you’re okay then so am I.”

“Doesn’t seem to be doing anything now,” Jason panned the camera around. “So must have just been the mirror that was fucked with.” 

Duck walked closer to the mirror, being a lot more careful than Jason was. “It looks like a pretty normal mirror.”

“Careful not to step on any glass,” Jason warned. 

Dick nodded, but he really couldn’t find anything special about the mirror. 

“Can’t believe the one time I have to pan to a mirror for more than a second, and I can’t edit it out,” Jason grumbled. 

“Sorry Jay, that was some important footage. Looks like it’s time for that face reveal.”

Jason let out a short laugh. “So do we click bait title the mirror or my face?” He paused. “Oh, or the fact that we’re dating. I did say when my face got revealed we’d tell them that.” 

“I guess we’re using that since you did just record yourself saying it.”

“Well, I also recorded the mirror and my face in it. There’s options.” 

“I think dating is the best option. That or your face, it’s a nice face.”

“A mirror exploded. That’s the content people are actually watching for.” 

“That’s what you think. Don’t underestimate your popularity.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Let’s see if we can find another mirror message,” he gestured for Dick to lead the way. 

Nothing else happened in the house that night while they explored, so it was probably just a trick mirror - or at least Jason said it probably was, but at least they got Jason's face reveal out of it.


End file.
